Lisa Wilkinson points the finger at Peter Meakin in defamation defence brought by Bruce Lehrmann

Part of Lisa Wilkinson’s legal defense against Bruce Lehrmann’s libel action will involve pointing the finger at one of the most powerful men on Australian television: Peter Meakin.

Mr Meakin, 80, who left Network 10 in October, was a senior news and current affairs executive when former Liberal Party employee Brittany Higgins sat down with Ms Wilkinson at The Project in February 2021. , claiming that she was raped in Parliament house by a “man”. colleague’ in March 2019.

Ms Wilkinson and Channel 10 are being sued by Mr Lehrmann over the interview, along with News Life Media, an umbrella company of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation which runs news.com.au, over the coverage of journalist Samantha Maiden who made the same allegations as Mrs Higgins.

Mr. Lehrmann has always maintained his innocence and strongly denies having sexual contact with Ms. Higgins.

According to his statement of lawsuit filed in Federal Court last month, Mr. Lehrmann says he was maligned because Wilkinson and Maiden were “recklessly indifferent to truth or falsehoods.”

Ms Wilkinson’s defense will argue that it was her colleagues’ job to verify the allegations before publication. At no time does the court record say that she conducted her own checks on her, beyond looking at the consistency of Ms. Higgins’ accusations and her reactions.

In the legal document, Ms Wilkinson named more than eight of her Network 10 colleagues as the people she believes verified the validity of Ms Higgins’ allegations.

They included Peter Meakin, The Project’s executive producer Craig Campbell, co-executive producer Chris Bendall, senior producer Angus Llewellyn and Laura Binnie, the show’s head of feature reporting.

“In Wilkinson’s view, Meakin’s input and extensive experience in news and current affairs were particularly crucial to the preparation and publication of the issues,” the defense read.

“Meakin had run the newsrooms of the major broadcast networks for more than five decades and was, in Wilkinson’s opinion, the most respected news executive in the country.”

The Walkley award-winning news veteran has worked at Channel Nine, Seven and 10 throughout his five-decade career and was instrumental in attracting Ms Wilkinson to The Project from Nine’s Today programme.

During her teary-eyed sendoff from the show in November last year, Ms Wilkinson personally thanked Mr Meakin and said she would remain with the network.

But his future at the station remains under a cloud after he dumped his lawyers online last month and hired his own new legal team to fight the defamation case and pin the blame on his colleagues.

The legal reorganization means that Ms. Wilkinson would be personally liable for any damages awarded should she lose the case.

His defense was presented in Federal Court by his lawyer Sue Chrysanthou SC on Wednesday, stressing that it will be based on a defense of the truth.

That means his legal team must show that Lehrmann was more likely to have raped Higgins.

Ms Higgins has indicated that she would be willing to testify at the trial, if it takes place.

Ms Wilkinson says that, to the best of her knowledge, the experienced team of news and current affairs professionals reached a consensus that Ms Higgins was a credible witness.

Furthermore, Ms Wilkinson noted that Samantha Maiden’s story on news.com.au was published 12 hours before her TV interview aired on 15 February 2021.

Thus, he believed that Ms. Maiden and News Corp had conducted their own fact-checking and legalization before the article was posted online, and were not aware of any complaints about the article online when The Project’s interview came out. in the air.

The TV presenter also says she ‘closely observed’ Ms Higgins’ behavior whenever she saw her and ‘carefully reviewed the recordings of the interviews before broadcast’, and generally believed the allegations.

Other sections of the archive describe Ms Wilkinson’s extensive journalism career, spanning from 1978 when she started as an editorial assistant at Dolly magazine to 2017 when she became a presenter on The Project.

He says he has interviewed more than ten prime ministers and world leaders and reported on disaster areas, along with his awards and accolades, including the 2022 Logie he won for his interview with Higgins.

Despite her long career in journalism, the document notes that Ms Wilkinson “is not familiar with the details of defamation law.”

A spokesperson for the network told Daily Mail Australia that Ms Wilkinson “remains an employee of Channel 10”.

His defense claims that the recklessness charges against him are “unfounded, unjustified, unsupported by any facts and should be withdrawn.”

The TV presenter does not deny that the central defamatory accusation of rape was broadcast, but does not admit that Mr. Lehrmann was identified.

Mr Lehrmann was not named in the TV interview or in the online article, but claims that his friends, family and former colleagues at Parliament House were able to identify him as the alleged rapist.

He argues that the coverage invited viewers and readers to “speculate” and seek comment online.

Another part of Mr. Lehrmann’s defamation suit is that Ms. Wilkinson may have sought to use the allegations for her personal and professional gain, which she denies.

Lehrmann was accused of raping Higgins in August 2021, six months after his allegations were published.

He was subsequently the subject of a month-long rape trial by jury in the ACT Supreme Court in October last year, but was aborted due to misconduct by a juror.

Shane Drumgold SC, the Director of Public Prosecutions, dropped the matter entirely due to concerns about Ms Higgins’ mental health.

Ms Wilkinson then resigned from The Project and hasn’t appeared on TV since November, but is still reportedly drawing a seven-figure salary thanks to her watertight contract.

When he resigned last year, he said it was due to “targeted toxicity” from sections of the media.